Movie Review: 'The Expendables 3'

This image released by Lionsgate shows Sylvester Stallone, left, and Jason Statham, center, in a scene from "Expendables 3." (AP Photo/Lionsgate, Phil Bray)

Antonio Banderas pretty much steals “The Expendables 3.” But at this stage in that winded franchise, that amounts to petty theft.

Adding the chatty, animated and action-friendly Banderas and Wesley Snipes as new “Expendables” and Mel Gibson as an arms-dealing villain amounts to a significant trade-up from the likes of Bruce Willis and Chuck Norris, mercifully missing in action.

Banderas is hilarious, mainly in the third act, and Snipes is welcomed with a decent action opening. He plays a guy they break out of some former Soviet prison. His offense? “Tax evasion!”

And Harrison Ford lets only a hint of embarrassment sneak into his turn as the new guy who gives the team of C.I.A.-hired mercenaries their missions.

But it’s when the film deviates from the “bunch of has-beens trying to be hard” formula that “Expendables” is most disposable.

After one of their number takes a bullet, Barney (Sylvester Stallone) lays them off and rounds up younger recruits — played by Kellan Lutz, MMA star Ronda Rousey, Victor Ortiz and Glen Powell — to go catch the murderous arms dealer (Gibson) whom Barney thought he’d killed years ago.

The recruiting-the-new-team bit is dull and jokey, as Barney rides around the country with some “finder” played by Kelsey Grammer. And the new kids’ trial by fire is strictly routine.

Banderas, as a Spanish chatterbox named Galgo, is the wild card, a man hungry for a mission. He’s like the Toshiro Mifune character from “Seven Samurai,” the comical self-inflated warrior that nobody wants. Galgo also is too old for this sort of work.

“Ees like I dee-SCOVER the FOUN-tain of youth!” he exults. Every scene, every “Puss-n-Boots” line, the guy kills. Even when he’s killing, and there’s a lot of that, because this movie has the highest body count this side of “World War Z.”